A Northern Shrike!

I was walking my dog this morning along the West River Trail in Brattleboro when I spotted a bird perched high up on the top branch of a tree, motionless, except for occasionally turning his head, watchful .... A Northern Shrike! .. I hurried back to my car to get the camera. When I got back it had not moved and allowed me to take many pictures until it finally flew off. It was a first winter bird to judge by the brownish/silvery scales on its chest.

Although from a distance the bird looks innocuous, it can turn into a fierce predator once it spots a small bird or mammal. Not undeservedly is it also known as Butcherbird

P. Siskins, C. Redpolls, C. Waxwings and ...drum roll please...I am the Featured Blogger of the Week on Birdingblogs.com

Winter is the time for visitors from the north: Pine Siskin who arrive in large flocks, descending, and aggressively defending their place, on our bird feeders until they have had their fill, also Common Redpolls, though less frequently, usually foraging on the catkins on birches, and Cedar Waxwings who arrive en masse on fruit bearing trees... You know they are coming when you hear their thin, clear, trilling voices in the air as they swirl around to pick the most likely tree. They are not very shy and let you come close.

  

And now about me....

I am proud of having been picked as the Featured Blogger of the Week on Birdingblogs.com, 

Winter Gulls - Lesser Black-backed and Iceland/Kumlien Gulls

There are some birds that only come to New England in the winter, among them the Lesser Black-backed Gull from N.W. Europe and the northern Atlantic, and the Iceland/Kumlien Gull from northern Canada. The Lesser Black-backed Gull  reportedly first bred in Iceland in the late 1920's and has been breeding in Greenland since 1990. There is no record of breeding in N. America, but since 1980 there has been a dramatic increase of nonbreeding individuals in the fall and winter. They have become fairly common along the Atlantic coast and the shores of the Great Lakes, but are uncommon further inland.

They do appear however to be fairly regular winter visitors to the CT River area near Gill and Turner's  Falls in MA. Following a recent report of a sighting I was happy to find the gull there in a mixed group roosting on the ice.

What distinguishes them from other gulls are gray upper parts, yellowish legs, head and neck streaking, and a medium size bill that is slender and often tapered. They are much smaller than the Great Black-backed Gull and also smaller than the Herring Gull, standing behind it in this photo. The two gulls in front are Ring-billed Gulls. 

This photo of a LBBG among a flock of Herring Gulls was taken in the same area in the winter of 2008.

The other fairly uncommon winter visitor is the Kumlien Gull